On 28 Mar 2006, at 14:09, John Rice wrote: > I think the requirement is to make it easy to access all of the Sys > Mng Tools from the Desktop. The problem is that it seems to mix up > a users standard desktop and a sys admins desktop. So on the Mac > version in the PRD there is quite a different set of tools on the > taskbar than on the one that came on my default Mac install. It is > the Sys Admin Taskbar really. > > What about catering for this type of thing with a Sys Admin Panel, > that can be turned on if the user installs the Sys Admin Tools. It > would have a the appropriate icons for the various proposed Admin > tools, like Workspace manager, Services Manager and so on.
Interesting thought... we considered that sort of thing (different panel "templates" for different tasks... e.g a Multimedia panel, an Internet panel, a Sysadmin panel) back in the madhatter days, but it never really got off the ground. Trying to do UI things based on pigeonholing the user into some category or another is always a bit risky (the old nautilus "expert mode" in GNOME 1.4 being a typical example), but pre-defined panel "templates" would leave the user free to mix-and-match or customise them afterwards. I'm not sure if the infrastructure is quite there in GNOME at the moment to fully support it, but I guess it's something we could look into again... Cheeri, Calum. -- CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer Sun Microsystems Ireland mailto:calum.benson at sun.com Java Desktop System Team http://blogs.sun.com/calum +353 1 819 9771 Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems
